For decades, my day has not started without a bowl of cereal. You can read a bit about that on my about page, so I won’t repeat myself here. But, for the past month, not a drop of cereal has passed these lips. I think it’s safe to say that I have broken the addiction.

Like a smoker becoming a gum chewer, I have found a replacement for my cereal addiction. It meets all the criteria that cereal used to meet. It’s quick, tasty, filling, healthy, gluten-free, requires no cooking, and most importantly, is eaten out of a bowl. (Hey, I have to live up to my mommy bowl reputation, right?) What is this new addiction? I’ve dubbed it the “fruit and nut bowl.” Like cereal, it comes in many varieties, though I do tend to get a wee bit stuck on one or two iterations. My latest fixation is this one:

Apples, Walnuts, Coconut, Flax Seed

This bowl contains one grated organic pink lady apple, a handful of raw walnuts, a sprinkling of unsweetened dried coconut, and a spoonful of flax seed. I topped it all off with some cold almond milk. Delicious.

Of course, there’s also this one:

Banana, Raisins, Peanuts, Flax Seed

This one is a chopped organic banana, some raisins, some unsalted dry roasted peanuts, a bit of flax seed, and some rice milk. I call this one my Elvis bowl. (Bananas and peanuts really are delicious together.)

The combinations are infinite, and will vary with whatever organic fruit looks good at the market. When there was a great sale on some organic cherries, I mixed up cherries, almonds, coconut and coconut yogurt. Delicious, but I forgot to take a picture. Just trust me that it was far prettier than these other ones, okay?

Looks fabulous!! (And glad I finally got onto the page!). My own way to beat the cereal addiction is something very similar that I called an “Earth Bowl”–love the crunch, which is reminiscent of cereal in the morning. 🙂

Deanna – I’m with you! This is my favorite breakfast too. My iteration tends to start with a diced apple (fuji is one of my faves), then I add grated, unsweetened coconut, raisins, dried mango and/or banana (I get both at Trader Joe’s), chopped nuts (usually walnuts or almonds), and a few diced dates. Then I make my own Almond Milk and pour it over for the final touch. It’s decadent and delicious!

Ok. This *may* just be the thing I need to break my addiction to cereal. Problem is that I have very little time in the morning so even grating an apple takes too long. Maybe I could try something like the one with raisins….

My super speedy version is sliced banana. Just peel the banana, break it in half in the bowl, slice each have the long way and then chop it the short way. Takes less than a minute. And, I’m sure you could make the spinach milk the night before. Tonight’s was 100 g spinach, 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, and 1 T. peanut butter, whizzed up. I really should have used less almond milk though – the bowl was too full!